Friday Eve

While working, I loved Thursdays. Thursday was Friday Eve. On Thursday, you could rejoice in the fact that tomorrow would be the working man’s beloved Friday. I am writing this on Thursday. Retirement Thursday does not have the potential happy punch that working Thursday did, but here I am on Thursday, still happy. I’m happy that I’m retired and no longer working.

I’m happy that I’m not working EVERY day during retirement. Happy is heavily dependent upon perspective. Every morning I have to get up and check my shoes to make sure that they don’t have unhappy slime on the soles. That slime will cause my happy feet to slip right out from under me and I can (and have) slide into a pool of unhappiness and self-pity. I have quoted my favorite business slogan (Bissell’s) before: “life’s messy; clean it up.” When it comes to unhappy shoe slime, I have to clean it up myself. Only I can clean it up. There is no Mr. Clean who can magically appear and clean it up for me. Mister, that’s not very nice to me.

I’ve been developing an unhappy shoe-slime cleaning solution. The ol’ Coronavirus has complicated my formulating. My granddaughter, Liadan, frequently reminds me of the impact of Coronavirus. She is very theatrical, so she often, with much drama, tells me that she would have… (it’s always something phenomenal) but she was foiled by CORONAVIRUS. Things I can’t do because of Coronavirus are unhappy slime on the soles of my shoes. I would be going to the gym (or more likely the YMCA) and be incredibly svelte, but for Coronavirus. Slime removing solution: walk (while masked) with friends. I would be learning Spanish (or pickleball, or bridge, or improved writing skills) at my nearby senior center, but for Coronavirus. Slime removing solution: Masterclasses and The Great Courses. I would be reconnecting with friends from my past, but for Coronavirus. Slime removing solution: writing a blog and sending invites to the blog to friends (after 100 posts I’m up to 25 followers – thank you my friends). I’m retired; my time is my own. Today I cleaned my pantry shelves. Yeah, life is good (and my pantry is clean).

So it’s Friday Eve and I love it. I learned to love Thursdays while working. In retirement, I’m LEARNING to love EVERY day. To tell the truth, I’m only moderately happy, but another thing I learned while working is to fake it until you make it. If you’ll excuse me, I have some unhappy slime to remove from the soles of my shoes so that I will be ready to be happy on Friday.